Shown above is a blueprint from Lindsey Management Co. Inc., based in Fayetteville, Ark., for building 480 apartment units around a nine-hole golf course complete with bunkers, water hazards and par-3s, 4s and 5s. Called The Links, construction for the site west of Queens Road is scheduled to begin in May.

A new golf course is on the way, two new business parks are in the works, and a restoration and redevelopment of buildings a few blocks east of downtown are among projects drawing interest these days in Lawrence.

And a massive cleanup and redevelopment project remains on the horizon just a few miles down Kansas Highway 10 in De Soto.

Here’s a quick look at five projects going in the area:

Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant

What once served as the world’s largest manufacturing plant for gunpowder now is getting a more than $100 million scrubdown, burnoff and removal of potentially explosive and otherwise harmful residues and materials.

And once it’s complete, the new Sunflower – all 9,065 acres of it south of K-10, just across the Douglas County line in Johnson County – will become a mixed-use community to include homes, apartments, offices, businesses and everything else that goes with it.

All in a space about the size of Leawood.

“It’s more than a business park,” said Kise Randall, executive director for Sunflower Redevelopment LLC, which took ownership of the land in August 2005. “It will have everything.”

Among its components:

¢ 500 acres for Kansas University, with specific uses yet to be determined

¢ 350 acres for Kansas State University, which already is using land for plant research.

¢ 2,000 acres around the perimeter, and including creeks, to become part of Johnson County’s parks system.

¢ Thousands of acres to be reserved for homes, offices, shops and other needs to serve the area.

Discussions about potential specific uses will be conducted later this year, Randall said.

“It’s SimCity on a big scale,” she said.

But first things first. Cleanup continues at the site, she said, with so-called “explosives remediation” through controlled burns nearing completion. Leftover buildings already have been burned to cut danger of explosions, and most all remaining equipment has been taken care of.

Now it’s time to dig up 37 miles of processed sewer piping, and burning it occasionally, to get rid of remaining residue.

“It will get hot and heavy this summer,” she said.

Cleanup is scheduled for completion in 2012, Randall said.

East Lawrence development

It’s been six years now since Bo Harris decided to put together plans for revamping a line of buildings and properties in the area of Eighth and Pennsylvania streets in east Lawrence.

Now he’s ready to get to the actual work on the estimated $30 million project.

“I still think the project will be fine,” said Harris, part of the Cinco Hombres LLC partnership working on the project. “There’s just been so many preconstruction hoops to jump through. It’s taken a long time to get there. I think we’ll get there.”

By “there,” Harris means renovating some buildings and adding some new ones to create a mixed-use center for residential, office and commercial property owners and tenants.

Among the most notable sections of the project is the Poehler building, a four-story structure at 619 E. Eighth St.

The building has about 65,000 square feet available. Efforts to land tenants are ongoing, and Harris expects that recent interest could yield enough users that some form of renovations and remodeling could begin by fall.

Also expected this fall, in conjunction with the renovations: extension of Delaware Street, from Eighth to Ninth streets.

“By the end of the year we’ll be getting into starting that project over there,” Harris said. “Hopefully that will include the Poehler building project on the southwest corner of Eighth and Pennsylvania (streets).”

The Links

Developers are taking a shot at a new kind of apartment complex in Lawrence: one with a golf course.

Lindsey Management Co. Inc., based in Fayetteville, Ark., has plans for building 480 apartment units around a nine-hole golf course with bunkers, water hazards and par-3s, 4s and 5s.

Lawrence city commissioners approved zoning and a development plan for the project in February, and Lindsey officials intend to start construction by May. Such projects typically take about 18 months to build, said Hugh Jarratt, a corporate attorney for Lindsey Management, which has more than 30 similar complexes with courses.

The Lawrence project will occupy 80 acres of farm and timber land west of Queens Road in northwest Lawrence. It generally will be west of the intersection with Wakarusa Drive, which ends at Queens Road.

The project is designed to meet the needs of a variety of people: from college students looking for a unique place to live and play, to empty nesters and retirees who want to downsize and have access to nearby recreation.

Residents at The Links won’t have to pay greens fees to play on their home course, which also will be open for play to members of the public willing to pay greens fees and to a limited number of nonresident members paying monthly fees.

“It’s a nice deal,” Jarratt said.

Northwest industrial park

Steve and Duane Schwada continue working on plans for a new industrial park on 155 acres of undeveloped land northeast of the Kansas Turnpike’s Lecompton interchange.

The property – located outside the Lawrence city limits northwest of town and just outside the edge of the city’s regulatory urban growth area – would be large enough to accommodate a variety of business needs, Duane Schwada has said: from a single warehouse operation covering up to 600,000 square feet, or a collection of smaller uses looking to capitalize on quick and easy access to the turnpike or the South Lawrence Trafficway and its connection with U.S. Highway 59 south of Lawrence.

An attempt four years ago to secure approval for establishing the business park failed to gain enough support from Douglas County commissioners to move forward. Now the Schwadas are working through Lawrence officials to get the land annexed into the city, and grappling with opposition from neighbors who say that the area is not appropriate for any urban development, much less an industrial park.

Duane Schwada isn’t fazed and emphasizes that the community needs to accommodate growing companies and welcome new ones.

“You’re not going to be able to satisfy everybody,” he said late last year, as the proposal was being reviewed by officials at City Hall, “but the community as a whole needs jobs, and it needs locations for those jobs.”

Airport business park

The Schwadas aren’t the only ones pursuing plans for a business park.

Jes Santaularia is leading a development team that wants to turn a 144-acre site near Lawrence Municipal Airport into a center for warehouses, manufacturers and other businesses.

His major selling point: ready access to the Kansas Turnpike, the prime artery for ground transportation from a site already adjacent to a base for general aviation.

Studies conducted for Santaularia’s group indicate that the site ultimately could draw employers who would be expected to employ a total of 1,600 people and pay $54 million in fees, taxes and other revenue to local governments during a 20-year period.

City commissioners, however, have heard from neighbors concerned about the project, and officials have questioned whether the public should finance what would be necessary improvements to water, sewer, road and drainage systems in the area.